


Almost Honest

by Ninkasa



Category: Supernatural
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-14
Updated: 2012-02-14
Packaged: 2017-10-31 03:37:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,989
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/339470
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ninkasa/pseuds/Ninkasa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean has trouble opening up about everything he’s been through.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Almost Honest

**Author's Note:**

> Gift for spirited_lizard at the spn_hetexchange comm on LJ.
> 
> Spoilers for the majority of S5.

It started with the dreams.

Or rather, it started with the nightmares. Lisa called them nightmares. He woke up shouting most nights.

Lisa, at first, didn’t ask any questions. She said she knew better. “I cannot begin to understand the things you’ve seen.” Then she’d paused, hands wrapped tight around the coffee mug in front of her as they sat at the kitchen table. Her eyes flicked up to his face, down to the coffee mug and then back up to him again. “But when you’re ready. I am here.” She’d reached out, squeezed his hand and then slid off the stool to get ready for work.

Dean had never mentioned the things that happened after the last time he’d turned up on her doorstep. When he’d been about to give himself over to Michael.

And for the first few months, Lisa had assumed the nightmares were about the things that she knew he’d hunted. The typical ghouls, demons, monsters and ghosts that she’d been told about.

And then the screaming had started. 

He started shouting for Sam. 

For Cas. 

Dean only learned this when Lisa shook him awake one night. 

He’d woken up trembling all over, gripping Lisa as if she were a life preserver.

She rubbed her hands up and down his arms gently, soothing.

“Are you alright?”

Dean took a deep breath and then another one. He didn’t want to lie, but at the same time, he just couldn’t explain at that moment. He nodded slowly. “Yeah. Of course. I’m fine.”

Lisa raised an eyebrow at this. “Okay. Because the amount of screaming that was going on typically points to the opposite.”

Dean wanted to laugh at the sarcasm in her voice. He didn’t. But he really wanted to. He also really didn’t want to talk about this right now. He needed a full night’s sleep and several stiff drinks before he could even begin to think of talking about this. And he did think about it. He considered telling her everything, but the timing never seemed right. Or he just couldn’t find the right words.

It never occurred to him that she wouldn’t be able to handle it. Honestly, he was the one that couldn’t handle the idea of putting that burden on her.

He leaned up to kiss her forehead.

“I’m sorry, Lis.” Dean hesitated for a moment, playing with her fingers beneath his. He squeezed her hand. “I need a little more time.”

Lisa leaned up again to kiss him and then slid out of his grasp, out of the bed entirely. “I have to be at work in an hour.” She paused. “So do you.” She held out her hand to him, tugging him up when he took the offered hand. She grinned. “Come on. We can split the water.”

Dean laughed at this, twining his fingers in her hair, kissing her slowly as she tugged him backwards towards the bathroom.

It had taken him about a month after he turned up on Lisa’s doorstep -- after losing Sam -- for him to stop sleeping on the couch and finally agree to come sleep upstairs with her. It took another month for him to bring himself to kiss her. To allow her in. To let himself feel something other than the awful despair that had been choking him. 

Lisa had been ridiculously understanding, even if she seemed terribly frustrated a lot of the time. But then, Dean supposed it wasn’t easy trying to get close to a guy who’d shown up out of the blue and turned out to be an emotional train wreck.

He’d mostly slept on the couch to keep from waking her up with his nightmares. Not that it had helped much; she’d still come downstairs most nights to check on him.

It had never been that he didn’t want her. Didn’t care. He hadn’t just turned up there because there’d been no where else to go. Because of his promise to Sam. He hadn’t really been running and hiding.

It took him several months to convince himself of this. 

And when he finally did, it was as if a dam had broken inside him. Or a wall. Or some other contrived metaphor. Dean had suddenly found it possible to feel something other than the despair.

Lisa had been startled, but thrilled, when he’d kissed her the first time. 

After that everything had been easy and right and natural.

So much so that now he wondered why on earth he’d waited so long.

Dean trailed his fingers down to undo the sash on the front of Lisa’s robe, tugging it loose as she twisted around in his grip to turn the handle on the shower over to warm.

It occurred to him again as Lisa turned to fumble with the bottom of his t-shirt, as she dropped her robe and backed carefully into the shower that this shouldn’t be so easy.

Then again, the chemistry between them had never really been a problem.

It was really the other stuff that seemed to be the big issue. Dean tipped his head back to let her pull the t-shirt over his head, shucking his jeans and following her into the shower.

No, it was the truth and emotions. All those things that he couldn’t tell her, because he wasn’t sure she wanted to know. 

She gasped slightly as the water hit her back, and she twisted slightly to twine her fingers into his hair and pull his mouth back to hers. 

He flinched once as her fingers settled across the red handprint on his arm, touching in much the same way Anna had once done, but without the reverence. Without the knowledge of where the mark had actually come from.

Anna had known who made the mark.

Lisa assumed it was from some monster and had been too traumatic to talk about. She’d actually commented, the first time he’d come out of the shower without a shirt on, “That looks like it hurt.”

Dean had nearly forgotten the mark was there, glancing at it and feeling an ache settle into his chest that he wasn’t sure he could stomach. Honestly, it hadn’t ever really hurt. The only time he ever even had a reminder that it was there was when someone came into contact with it. Lisa managed to never comment on the fact that he seemed to have difficulty with having the scar touched. 

But she also didn’t shy away from doing just that.

Dean slipped his hands down around her waist, as she backed him across the tile until they were pinned between the shower wall and the glass doors. 

Fingers slid down across his chest, Lisa’s mouth following her hands as water skidded across his skin. Dean kissed the top of her head, tugging her up to catch her mouth with his and taking a moment to twist his fingers into her hair. He felt more than heard her laugh against his mouth as she wrapped a leg around his waist. 

It occurred to him at that moment that whenever they decided showering together was the best way to get a shower in a hurry, neither of them actually got clean.

It also occurred to him that, usually when one person suggested sharing a shower, actually bathing wasn’t the intended result.

Lisa moaned slightly against his mouth as he shifted his weight to push against her, sliding into her as she brought her other leg up to grip his hips tightly. Dean spun and pressed her against the wall, settling into a frenzied, slightly desperate rhythm as their mouths teased and bit against each other.

Dean’s hand gripped tightly onto the shelf by his head, causing a cascade of shampoo bottles, loofas and one bizarrely placed GI Joe doll to come falling down onto them. Lisa released his mouth then to laugh slightly.

“We have to find a better place to put that caddy.”

Dean moaned slightly as her fingers slid down to rub against the back of his neck, then groaned as she twisted to cause a change in pressure that made lights explode behind his eyes. “Sweetheart, I really don’t want to think about redecorating right now.”

Laughter again as her breath hitched and she moaned into his shoulder, shuddering against him as he followed her quietly.

Lisa pulled back from him after a long moment of silence, attempting to catch her breath. “You‘re right. Maybe a weekend project.”

Dean groaned before kissing her forehead. “Maybe. Come on. The water’s getting cold.”

They dried and dressed and got on with their lives. 

And Dean managed to push the nightmares into the back of his mind, the way he always did. The way he’d always done. And if he always moved a little slower after a night full of the dreams or if he was more on edge and more touchy than normal, well, lack of sleep did that to you.

No one but Lisa had to know that the reason he was so anxious was because he’d had a night full of whatever monsters she thought permeated his subconscious.

He didn’t have the heart to tell her that a lot of the dreams consisted more of angels than monsters these days. Although sometimes the occasional shape shifter or rugaru would make an appearance. Sometimes he dreamt of a fire in Ben’s bedroom or saw Lisa burning on the ceiling.

It was those that sent him into Ben’s room at night, sometimes. Dean would stand in the doorway and watch for awhile to make sure Ben’s breathing was even. 

He checked under Ben’s bed too, although he often did so without letting Ben know, because then Ben would ask for a gun or knife or something else that there was no way he was going to be allowed to keep in his room.

It was those dreams that had him sitting at the kitchen table several weeks later, sitting with a cup of coffee and trying to focus on anything but the visions that were playing in his mind.

“You couldn’t sleep either.”

Dean turned to see Lisa come padding into the kitchen, pouring herself a cup of coffee and sliding into the seat across from him.

Dean laughed slightly and shrugged, reaching up to rub his neck slowly. “No.” He paused. “What was your excuse?”

Lisa smiled. “Dentist appointment,” she said after a moment. 

Dean smiled at this. It usually took a broken tooth or so much pain she was in tears to get her into a dentist’s chair. 

Although. . .

“It’s Ben’s appointment,” Dean pointed out. “Not yours.”

Lisa laughed and stood up, going over to the counter and returning with the chocolate pie she’d baked the afternoon before. “I know,” she said, handing him a fork and planting the pie down between them. “I’m transferring.”

Dean laughed again, and reached out to take a bite of pie. The fork was halfway to his mouth when he had a flash of Mary in Heaven, standing in the kitchen while he and Sam looked on.

Oh, Jesus.

Dean dropped the fork onto the table quickly and reached up to rub his eyes.

“What?” Lisa put her fork down too. “Is there something wrong with the pie?”

Dean shook his head. “No. Sorry, Lis. It’s nothing.”

“Ha,” she said. “Yeah. This is nothing.” She paused. “Is it. . .”

Dean stared at her for a moment as she reached out to squeeze his knee once gently. 

He took a deep breath, opened his mouth. Closed it. And then opened it again.

The thing was, he was pretty sure she could handle it.

Dean took her hand in his and squeezed her fingers. 

“If you don’t have anywhere to be in the next three or four hours,” he said slowly, “I have some things to tell you.”

Her eyes widened, and she nodded once, slowly. “I have all the time in the world.”


End file.
